


you & me (fighting side by side)

by bitterbubblegumbitch



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Based on 7x05, Bellamy Blake-centric, Memory Capture, Octavia Blake Deserves Better, Octavia Blake-centric, Season 7 Spoilers, Season 7 canon divergent, Welcome to Bardo, really it's Blake siblings centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:14:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24924493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitterbubblegumbitch/pseuds/bitterbubblegumbitch
Summary: “My sister died a long time ago,” his past self says.If he could spit in that man’s face, he would. He knows nothing of dead sisters.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	1. does he know that we bleed the same

**Author's Note:**

> Bellamy is taken to Bardo right after Octavia is captured. While he's put in a cell, believing his sister dead, she's taken to M-Cap.

There’s a bed against the center of the back wall. When they practically carried him in, knees dragging across the smooth floor, they deposited him on the edge of the mattress. Once the door clanged shut behind them, he crawled to the corner furthest from the entryway, tucked his legs into his chest, and blacked out.

“Octavia!”

His body jolts forward as he wakes up, crying out his sister’s name through the rawness in his throat. The fingers of his left hand feel almost glued together, curled into a loose fist. When he wiggles his fingers, the skin pulls taut, until the dry blood gives. Rust colored flakes flutter over his pants, settle on the floor. 

The shaking starts in that hand, building with the rage and suffocating grief that started welling in his chest the moment he had watched his sister’s eyes glaze over and her limp body be pulled from his arms by something he couldn’t yet explain. 

It’s an image that will never leave his mind, he’s sure. The thought sends enough strength through him to stand and rush the door on shaky legs. He doesn’t know when he raised his fist but suddenly pain is throbbing through his knuckles and feral screams are tearing through his throat. 

He swings until his biceps burn and his voice gives out. Nobody comes.

Blood sluggishly pumps out of the abrasions across each knuckle, dripping across dried patches of his sister’s blood, and it only seems right. It’s an awful realization, that Octavia was right when she said that they belonged side by side, and he denied her again and again. 

A sick feeling tempers his rage, weighing him down, until his knees buckle and he’s resting against the doorway. For all the grief he feels over his sister being dead feels undeserved now that he thinks about every time he was willing to let her die. 

That night, in the bunker when his self righteousness blinded him, and he thought he was doing the right thing by poisoning her. He doesn’t know if he believed her so invulnerable, wearing _Blodreina_ like armor, that he really thought her safe, or if he was willing to kill her even then. 

Days later, it’s night again, she’s looking at him with big eyes, so willing to die for Gaia and Indra, for him, her people. He hardly recognizes himself, able to watch her walk into the line of fire, collapse on her knees, and accept her death so easily. 

Night must be when this stranger takes over him, though he knows he can’t shift the blame so easily. There’s a darkness in his sister’s eyes, even 125 years later and a seemingly immeasurable distance between them and the bunker. He doesn’t understand why she is still so willing to kill blindly. Why Octavia only comes alive when blood stains her sword. He doesn’t ask, doesn’t comfort, doesn’t look to heal. There’s scorn on his face as he leaves her in that forest, delivering an unnecessary blow with cruel words. 

“My sister died a long time ago,” his past self says. 

If he could spit in that man’s face, he would. He knows nothing of dead sisters. 

Eventually, he falls asleep in that position, waking only to the sound of a tray sliding through a slot in the door that shuts as quickly as it opened. Water sloshes over the edge of a soft bowl, into an already wet, smooth puree. 

He’s in no position, woozy and thirsty as he is, to refuse so he digs in, ravenous, before suspicion can further sink in. 

What feels like days pass like this, uncertainty sure to drive him mad. There are no visits, no demands, no threats. Only trays that slide in just as he’s starting to feel hungry, and disappear in the moments he gives in to sleep. 

He shouts at the ceiling, tries to get a few words in before the slot closes, to no avail. The fourth time he receives a meal, he uses the hem of his cardigan dipped in water to get most of the blood off of his hand. The pain as he dabs at his scabbed over wounds is a welcome reprieve from the alternating waves of sadness, anger, and numbness. 

After that, he pulls the sheet off of the mattress and retreats to his original corner. This is the only comfort he allows himself. The softness of the bed feels like more than he deserves. Instead of cushioning his grief, it burns through like acid. 

On what he counts as day seven, the slot doesn’t open for a long time, and he begins preparing himself for contact, and starts to accept that this may be his end. A prisoner with no use is a waste of resources.

Hours later, the door slides open. Before he can stand, a weapon is pointed his way and a robotic voice orders him to stay back. Two more uniformed figures appear, holding a body dressed in white between them. They drag the person to the middle of the room, not daring to get close enough to him to deliver them to the bed, and let them drop.

As soon as the woman crumples to the ground, they exit the room. 

He stays by the wall at first, observing and giving her time to rouse. After a few minutes of just her even, raspy breathing, he steps closer. She’s facing down, legs awkwardly folded underneath her body, and her thick almost-black hair covers any identifiable features. 

Before he can approach any further, she lets out a deep groan, and shifts her head toward him.

“O?” He rasps out. 

It can’t be, this has to be a dream. Maybe they did dose his food and he’s hallucinating, or—.

He’s dropping to his knees before he really thinks about it, pushing at her exposed left shoulder until she rolls onto her back. It’s his sister’s face staring back at him. The tank top she’s been dressed in shows off the tattoo wrapping around her right bicep, the scars on her arms, the one on her neck. 

“Octavia,” he whispers as he cradles the back of her neck, tugging her up to rest against his chest. 

Wherever his sister has been held left her cold to the touch. Whatever they did to her left bruises on both wrists and strange indents by her temples. Her eyes look sunken in and purple with exhaustion while the rest of her face remains colorless. 

Although it seems they haven’t been feeding her like they did him, he’s so overwhelmed that he struggles to carry her to the bed. Through tears, he maneuvers her into his cardigan, lifts her back into his arms, and wraps her in the blanket. 

He hasn’t done this since they first got to the ground back on Earth and she got sick but it feels right now— he rocks her. Back and forth, gently, and hums like he did when she was a baby and needed to keep quiet. 

“I have you now, O. They won’t take you away from me again.”


	2. of you and me ever changing (i am lost)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s looking at him with awe in her eyes by the end and he realizes that this is what he should have told her over 125 years ago when they cracked open the bunker and all the horrors within.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Octavia and Bellamy get to talk things through as they should have been able to from the beginning. The Blake siblings are stronger together, they just need a lil push to remember. 
> 
> Chapter title from "In this Shirt" by The Irrepressibles. The slowed tik tok version is haunting and addictive.

Bellamy jolts awake as he feels the weight in his arms shift away. In his half-conscious state, he tightens his grip automatically, and Octavia flails, throwing her head back and making contact with his chin. He grunts, but doesn’t let go, instead gently laying her on the mattress while keeping his hands on her shoulders. 

“Hey, hey, O, calm down,” he soothes. 

Octavia thrashes harder, eyes unseeing, and she cries out. 

“Get. Out. Of. My. _Head_.” 

Confused, his grip slackens and she twists away from him, stumbling over the side of the bed and falling back against the wall. The sudden freedom or the impact is enough to bring Octavia back to the present. She blinks slowly, taking in the room around her before settling her gaze on her brother. 

“Bell?”

He stays crouched by the bed, hands up, palms showing to show that he isn’t a threat as he lets out a shuddering breath. She’s the only person that has ever called him by that nickname and it clicks that this is real. 

“I’m right here, O,” he inches closer. “They won’t separate us again.”

She scoffs, tugging the sleeves of his cardigan over her fists, turning her head to rest her cheek on the fabric as if to savor the softness. 

“You have no idea what they are capable of,” she trembles. 

Bellamy frowns at that, settling back to sit cross-legged a few inches away. Far enough that she doesn’t feel trapped but not willing to maintain much distance. 

“You said that they were in your head, O. How is that possible? What can they see?”

Her face crumples, tears dropping quickly down her cheeks. 

“Everything.”

His eyes zero in on the strange markings by Octavia’s temples, remembers the bruises circling her wrists. Watching his sister’s eyes go distant again, body shaking and chest heaving, breaks his resolve and he closes the distance between them, tucking her face into his shoulder and cupping the back of her head. 

“I couldn’t stop them, Bell. However hard you fight, the machine is stronger, it burns through your mind until they have the answers they want. They keep asking questions to bring memories to the surface, and—.”

“Shh, O, you must have fought so hard. Whatever answers they got, it’s not your fault,” he tries to comfort her but she tears away from his arms instead. 

“No, you don’t understand,” the guilt on her face confuses him. “I didn’t just break, I gave them what they wanted because—. Because they found him, Bell. They said they would take him away and I couldn’t. Even after all this time, I couldn’t let him go.”

“Who, O? Who do they have?”

“Lincoln.”

Octavia takes his silence to mean disappointment or anger and turns her back to him, curling into her knees in shame. Truthfully, Bellamy doesn’t know what to say. His sister hasn’t even uttered his name in so many years and he knows better than to bring him up if she hasn’t and she never brings him up. 

Fear is starting to creep in as well. Not only can these people view memories, but they can erase them as well, or maybe just hide them, he doesn’t know. 

If the enemy has such advanced tech, then they are well and truly outnumbered. Regardless, he sets his jumbled thoughts aside and turns his attention to Octavia. 

“Hey,” he almost whispers. “Listen to me, O. This is not your fault, ok? Nobody would hold this against you, I definitely don’t. Whatever information they have now, whatever they’re trying to do, they won’t win. There will be people looking for us and they won’t give up. That means that we cannot give up, do you understand me?”

She’s looking at him with awe in her eyes by the end and he realizes that this is what he should have told her over 125 years ago when they cracked open the bunker and all the horrors within.

“I love you, big brother,” she finally lets a small, soft smile across her face and he feels his lips tug up too. “I know that there are parts of me that can’t be loved anymore, shouldn’t be, but—.”

He’s shaking his head before she can finish: “Octavia,” he starts, knowing her full name will get her attention, “I have made a lot of mistakes with you, one of the biggest being not telling you this: I love you and I’m sorry. I am so sorry that it took all of this, thinking you were dead, for me to see. I love you, my little sister.” 

They’re both crying hard now, collapsed against each other. 

“You aren’t the only one who made mistakes, Bell. I don’t recognize the person that would put you in the pit to die, and I’m sorry for that.”

He hears the doors slide open. 

“Shh, we’re past that. We’re stronger together, O.”

There are several people in the cell now, heavy boots hitting the ground hard. A distorted voice commands them as the soldiers spread out around them, weapons out. 

“Octavia Blake, come with us please.”

Before she can respond, he loops her arm over his shoulders and tugs her up to face them. 

“Side by side,” he whispers before addressing the group. “She isn’t going anywhere without me.”

He can see the masked figure start to argue, stepping toward them, before a man dressed in all white stops him. 

“Very well, you may join us Bellamy. Perhaps your sister will be more willing to cooperate now. We know she can withstand the pain, but she wouldn’t put you at risk. Would you, Octavia?”

Bellamy looks down at her and sees that there are no more tears on her face, steely mask back on, but he can feel her shaking at the realization that they will be digging into her head again. 

“Come now, enough time has been wasted,” the robed man says. 

They have no choice but to follow, with him bearing most of her weight. He doesn’t know how the tech works but he hopes that his sister doesn’t struggle as clearly it has drained her to the point that she can’t walk on her own. 

There are more turns than he can count, the hallways near identical, but by the time they stop in front of another door, Octavia’s head is dipping forward, face pale and hairline covered in sweat. 

“Welcome to M-Cap.”

The door slides open. 


End file.
